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Konstantin Sonin, a Professor of Economics at the New Economic School in Moscow, penned an article in the Moscow Times where hecompares the economic and political consequences of Moscow’s support of local “tsars:” Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko.
The political life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro goes on and on, thwarting all attempts to draw up a final summary of his reign. Over the course of Castro’s 50 years in power, Cubans’ standard of living has remained practically unchanged — even as living conditions have improved by leaps and bounds in most other countries. Among the many questions I’d like to pose: How was Castro able to maintain control of a small and militarily weak country using the energy of far stronger world powers?
A comprehensive history of Fidel would undoubtedly help us understand the behavior of Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has recently taken a series of steps to spite Russia’s current leadership.
It’s a historical fact that Cuba benefited greatly from the friendship and material support of the Soviet Union from the beginning of the 1960s to the late 1980s. But it is worth remembering that Fidel’s rule began with a friendship of an entirely different sort. Having seized power following the overthrow of the Batista regime, the newfound Cuban prime minister set out on a long visit to the United States in an effort to shore up relations there. It didn’t work out, of course. To draw support from the revolutionary poor while simultaneously defending American special interests at the U.S. government’s behest was a balancing act too difficult for even Castro. Understandably fearing that the United States would interfere in the island’s internal power struggles, Fidel threw himself into the arms of its Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union.
The story of the dramatic confrontation that occurred between the two warring superpowers during the Cuban Missile Crisis is a familiar one: Moscow placed nuclear-tipped rockets in Cuba; the Americans responded by threatening to blockade the island and inspect incoming vessels. Moscow withdrew the rockets and, in exchange, Washington agreed to withdraw its bases from Turkey and Italy and guarantee the safety of the Cuban government. Was it a draw? Yes, unless you count the person who won big at someone else’s expense.
It’s unclear what Moscow gained from all those years of supporting socialist Cuba. Fidel got the ability to consolidate and retain power despite shoddy domestic policies and brash foreign policies. (His country, one of the major economic failures of the 20th century, actually served as a source of “ideas” for others.)
The history of Fidel is not just an isolated case. The 20th century knew many other local “tsars” and socialist leaders who built up their own power and took handouts from all sides. For Russia, the lessons can be applied to Lukashenko. Support for an authoritarian, undemocratically elected leader might bring short-term gains, but it eventually turns a big country into a smaller country’s hostage. Attempts by big countries to use economic levers to pressure little Castros lead to lower standards of living and strengthen the authoritarian leaders’ power. If Lukashenko had to answer to voters, or if his power were restricted by an opposition-led parliament, he would have far fewer opportunities to manipulate us through his foreign policy.
In general, we don’t spend enough time studying the United States’ mistakes in Latin America over the past two centuries. We ought to hit the history books.
There’s a new book on the Stasi (the secret police of the former East Germany) entitled: The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi written by History Professor Gary Bruce of the University of Waterloo and printed by Oxford University Press.
Listen to the author’s interview in a Pajamas Media podcast (MP3).
The Economist‘s Newsbook blog on Fidel Castro’s comeback:
WITH Fidel Castro returning to public life after a four-year absence, Cuba’s state television has the vexed problem of how to refer to him—and whether he or Raúl Castro, his younger brother who succeeded him as president, comes first in seniority.
Until recently, when the ex-president was a near-recluse in his western Havana home, television announcers tended to use the informal title “Comrade Fidel”. The impression given was that of an almost-never-seen, and most definitely retired, grandfather in an upstairs room.
Fidel’s comeback—on Monday he made his seventh public appearance this month—has changed all that. The title “commander-in-chief” has been resurrected. Fidel is dressing the part once again: the Adidas track suit he frequently sported while convalescing has been replaced by an olive-green military shirt, albeit without the “commander” epaulets.
On Monday, Cuba’s official Revolution Day, over an hour of the main nightly news was dedicated to Fidel’s meeting with foreign activists in Havana. His brother, at a major summit with the Venezuelan government, was given less than ten minutes of airtime.
What might the senior Mr Castro increased presence mean for the direction of the country? Raúl is understood to be keen to give more room to private enterprise within Cuba’s stagnant state-run economy. But Havana-based diplomats say he fears doing anything to upset his brother. There is speculation that on August 1st, when Cuba’s National Assembly holds one of its rare meetings, further reforms may be announced. But before Raúl does anything, he will check with the boss.
Political philosopher Raymond Geuss of Cambridge University discusses the place of utopian thinking in political philosophy and its relation to realism via Philosophy Bitespodcast.
Deutsche Welle reports of a rebellious Spain hell-bent on pushing for change in the EU’s stance on Cuba:
As holder of the rotating EU Council presidency, Spain tried to massively influence the EU position on Cuba by pushing for increased dialogue and a normalization of relations despite Cuba not yet meeting the benchmarks set out in the Common Position.
“The relationship between the EU and Cuba has always been superficial,” Thiago de Aragao, Latin American senior research associate at the Foreign Policy Center, a London-based European think-tank, told Deutsche Welle.
“The only difference has been the relationship between Cuba and Spain, which due to history has been deeper. Spain has always had closer ties with Cuba. Spain has always been the most active EU state in encouraging talks between the countries in the hope of democratic openings.”
Spain’s argument that a more relaxed EU position would actually help achieve the human rights and democratic reform it sought took a massive blow in February with the tragic death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata, who died as a result of a hunger strike while in prison. Spain was forced to condemn Cuba along with the rest of Europe and the international community and reinforce the EU position on standing firm until human rights abuses ended.
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“Germany holds strong to the Common Position and has been quite critical to the Spanish efforts to change it,” Professor Guenther Maihold, the deputy director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Deutsche Welle.
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“While Spain seems to see in the release of the prisoners a moment of change in the Cuban regime, many observers see heavy economic problems as a future trigger to some opening of the economic system of the island,” Professor Maihold said. “After the release of prisoners we have always seen the arrest of new people and no change in the general politics of the regime.”
It seems likely that the debate over the EU’s Cuba policy will continue once the bloc’s political summer break is over. Many in the EU see the release of the political prisoners by Cuba as a step toward Havana meeting the criteria Europe has set for the normalization of relations but not as a justification for increased dialogue or ties.
(Image: Spain’s push for a policy change is led by its foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos. AP.)
The Committee on Economic Affairs of the Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power (Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, ANPP) began today studying different issues related to the situation on the island, specifically, the precarious economic performance, which has increased demands for fundamental change by the populace.
Ministers and other leaders also notified members of the Committee on the implementation of the state budget in the first half of 2010, low labor productivity and import substitution. [El Financiero]
Today’s ABC (one of Spain’s influential dailies) has an opinion piece on Raúl Castro’s silence during the 26 of July celebration in Santa Clara on Monday, which is indicative of a “resounding plea for more ferocious inaction”:
Raúl’s silence compared with the speeches he made in previous years, which threw light promises—has been a resounding plea for fiercer inaction. The slogan of the day was that of economic integration with Venezuela, something that cannot comfort anyone since Hugo Chávez—who, incidentally, also came to the appointment of the Castro brothers, is an expert in carrying an oil country to utter ruin.
Jerry Bremer, CEO of Criminal Justice International Associates via Mexidata.com asks whether Cuba continues to pose a security risk to anyone in the Western Hemisphere:
Cuba’s Interior Ministry reportedly consists of approximately 20,000 officials assigned to their security and intelligence apparatus, along with an estimated 50,000 Cuban nationals in various official missions in Venezuela.
Castro’s resource starved revolution has been nurtured generously by President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The Castro brother’s personal wealth has been estimated as “combined — easily worth $2 billion.” The Chavez Frias family in Venezuela “has amassed wealth on a similar scale since Chavez’s presidency began in 1999.”
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Cuba had been getting approximately $5 billion a year from Venezuela in “oil, cash and kind.” It is further believed that Bolivarian organized crime groups entrenched within Chavez’s administration “have skimmed about $100 billion of the nearly $1 trillion of oil revenues PDVSA Oil has earned since 1999.”
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Both Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez continue to telegraph nervous vibes to true democratic and free nations with their vociferous support of Iran, Syria and North Korea, among others named as state sponsors of world terrorism, this as well as denouncing Israel and the U.S. The Castro and Chavez revolutions are indeed suspect, insofar as neither appears to benefit the suffering of the Cuban nor Venezuelan people.
Cuba is much less armed and resourced to defend a revolution by itself. If the Castro brothers and Chavez truly want to stand up factually to defend a benign threat to the hemisphere, as well as lead their people to a higher standard of survival and living conditions, they must aggressively denounce terrorism, drug trafficking, and related death and violence. Their actions in this positive step might show some genuine sincerity.
The Daily Telegraph on the future Cuban oligarchs awaiting in the wings for change, while Methuselah returns:
But one group is likely to be watching this strange political dance between the two Castro brothers with concern, as well as frustration: those who are preparing to amass vast personal wealth from Cuba’s eventual return to capitalism. They include senior officials within the regime.
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And just as a select few Russians did after the collapse of Soviet communism, well-connected Cuban officials might make fortunes if they are in a position to control the sale of national assets, or hand out contracts for the development of the currently under-exploited, stagnant economy. Land, property, telecommunications rights, sugar and agriculture are among the many sectors which could be worth billions.
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But who are the potential oligarchs? Esteban Morales has only named Mr Acevedo, the disgraced aviation boss. But his criticism appears to be aimed at corrupt government junior ministers and military bosses who manage parts of Cuba’s sprawling state run businesses.
While all government and military officials officially live on government salaries of as little as £25 a month, some already appear to be living far better-funded lifestyles. At a recent big-game fishing competition at the beach resort of Varadero, the Canadian expatriate competitors were surprised when they saw they were competing against some entirely Cuban teams, in motor yachts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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Yet those who hoped that, under Raul, a capitalist bonanza was about to begin have been disappointed by events over the last two weeks. Fidel Castro’s reappearance seems designed to send the clear message that he is back on the scene – and that, at least for now, real change is not yet in the air.
European Union’s foreign relations ministers will begin debating early next week the consequences of the recent release of political prisoners in Cuba. [Europa Press]
Germany demands of Havana “true reforms,” i.e. free elections and respect human rights. [Clarín]
Dominican president Leonel Fernández meets with Army General Raul Castro and both countries sign agreements on diplomatic exchanges. [PL]
Ricardo Alarcón (Cuban parliament president) is in France meeting with French parliamentarians and socialist politicians. [CubaMinRex]
US diplomatic mission in Cuba convened a meeting with relatives of political prisoners who are refusing an offer to leave emigrate to Spain. [AFP]
The Cuban Council of State, at the suggestion of its president, agreed to relieve José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera as Public Health Minister and promote in his place, Roberto Morales Ojeda (present Public Health First Vice-Minister).
Balaguer Cabrera, in accordance of the Politburo, will be reincorporated in the work of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee. [Radio Habana Cuba]
(Images: Balaguer (l) in Cubadebate; Morales (r) in Cibercuba)
La Verdad Obrera (LVO), a publication of the Argentine Socialist Workers Party, has an interesting critical piece on the recent political developments in Cuba from a Trotskyist perspective.
The following incisive paragraphs were transcribed from the story:
Bureaucracy and corruption
Accompanying the announcement of prisoners being released and an economic adjustment is the corruption scandal at the highest levels of the state apparatus. Cuban authorities called upon Chilean businessman and Fidel Castro’s friend Max Marambio (ex-MIR militant, custodian to Salvador Allende and Marcos Enriquez Ominami’s presidential campaign director) to appear before them as he is accused of malfeasance and fraud against the Cuban state through his aliment company, Río Zasa. News of this tailspin into a scandal because of the strange death of general manager of the Chilean company Roberto Baudrand. Corruption in the highest levels of government splashed recently upon Cuban ministers Jorge Luis Sierra and Luis Manuel Ávila.
This situation confirms the denouncements reproduced in LVO 382 by Esteban Morales, researcher at the Center of Hemispheric Studies and United States in Havana, who was thrown out of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) for pointing out that “corruption is the true counterrevolution” (Esteban Morales’s blog, July 7) and correctly signals out that state corruption is the way to place capitalist restoration in leadership circles within the state and PCC.
Bureaucracy and power
The public reappearance of Fidel Castro, even though declarations have not been made, expresses the support of the historic leader to his brother and the existing unity in the old guard gerontocracy of the Castroist bureaucracy that is evermore supported by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) to exercise power with an iron hand and keep up under his control the new phase of the Cuban political process. The active reappearance of Fidel looks to put a limit to the conflict between different factions of the governing bureaucracy and discipline them in a time beset by a world crisis and financial upheaval, the regime’s challenge is to diminish the crisis over the masses’ movement of taking new steps on the road to pro-capitalist reforms.
In this sense, the release of anti-Castro opposition prisoners is far from being an expansion of freedoms and political rights of the worker and peasant masses of Cuba, so that they can organize themselves to defend their gains (as we Trotskyists explain) express an attempt by the bureaucratic regime, haunted by the specter of financial ruin, to reinforce a political bargaining and making concessions to imperialist and restorationist forces.
(Image: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.)
The Cuban parliament—National Assembly of People’s Power (Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, ANPP)—will “debate” on August 1st the country’s critical economic situation in its first annual ordinary session in the middle of expectations among the population of an opening. Permanent commissions, held before the parliamentary meeting, headed by Army General Raúl Castro “will look at important issues such as the economic, political, and social life of the country.” [Juventud RebeldeviaAFP]
Cuba has said it is ready to release more political prisoners, in addition to the 52 it announced it would free earlier this month. The releases are part of a deal between Cuba, the Catholic Church and Spain, which is taking in many of the men after their release. But the US has said prisoners who do travel to Spain will no longer be eligible for asylum in America, where many have relatives. [BBC]
One of the largest graduations of capital officers of the National Revolutionary Police took place yesterday in Tarará Martyrs Academy, where hundreds of officers with different specialties also graduated. Almost 600 of those hundreds belong to the City of Havana. 500 new students will begin a new course in September. [Granma]
Other releases have lifted people’s hopes in the past. In 1969-70, about 1,300 prisoners were deported. In 1979, after a controversial negotiation with some exiles, 3,600 opponents were set free – and expelled. In 1998, Pope John Paul II’s visit was followed by the release of 40 men – and another mass deportation. Few regimes have played more deftly the sinister game of confining and torturing innocent persons in rat-infested jails only to win praise for using them as bargaining chips in subsequent negotiations.
A couple of things make the latest release potentially more meaningful, as some critics, including the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, have said. The fact that the decision was made by Raul Castro, an admirer of the “Chinese way” pioneered by Deng Xiaoping, may signify something. The participation of the church, which has gained more recognition these past few days than in the previous half a century, is intriguing. And Cardinal Ortega’s discreet trip to Washington to brief American officials suggests that Raul Castro is interested in some kind of arrangement with the United States. The cardinal, in fact, stressed in his meetings that Raul Castro is serious about reform.
None of which guarantees anything. The safest bet is to assume that the Castros are – for the umpteenth time – taking one step back before taking two steps forward. Raul Castro’s insistence that the prisoners leave the island with their families means he wants to get rid of the independent journalists and the Ladies in White – and abort the embryonic civil society they had painstakingly engendered. But it is not inconceivable, given Raul Castro’s bind, that the regime will try some reform in order to beef up the economy and ensure its survival after Fidel Castro dies – a move that, if it’s to generate international support and investment, will require a degree of political accommodation.
Not even Raul Castro himself knows whether reform will really occur. But one thing is clear: The Black Spring heroes and their Ladies in White have revealed to us, against all odds, that the Castros are not invincible. After 51 years, this is a soothing thought.
Der Spiegel on the political and economic realities facing the Castro regime in its fight for survival:
But the release of the dissidents could also be a message to the Europeans, who have not been entirely sure what to make of the new president since he officially assumed office in February 2008. Raul is believed to be less of a fundamentalist and more of a pragmatist than his brother Fidel. “He is not someone who is out to change the system, but he does show an understanding for the problems,” says one of the Europeans in Havana.
At first, Raul Castro sparked hopes that reforms could be on the way. But so far his fellow Cubans have seen little change, except that they can now own mobile phones and computers with limited Internet access.
Europe, however, wants to see clear signs of liberalization, as a precondition of more intensive cooperation with Havana, especially “progress in the area of human rights and political freedom.” European governments reached this conclusion long ago, in December 1996, and the same conditions are still in place today. However, Castro has forced the Europeans’ hand by releasing the dissidents.
Faced with a catastrophic situation in Cuban agriculture, Raul Castro is urgently in need of aid from Europe. The sugarcane harvest this summer, once an important source of foreign currency, is the worst since 1905. It is even about half a million tons shy of the harvest in 2009, when hurricanes wreaked havoc on the country.
Cuba is now forced to import more than 80 percent of its food, while foreign investment and exports have declined dramatically. At the same time, the sugar island is practically bankrupt and has had to reduce imports of food products and spare parts by at least a third.
Tens of thousands of well-trained young Cubans are leaving the country every year to earn money for their families elsewhere. The numbers would probably be even higher if the government let them go. For this reason, EU diplomats expect more signals from Raul on July 26, a Cuban national holiday: more privatization in agriculture, more freedom to buy homes and a relaxation of restrictions on travel abroad.
The man behind the operation that broke up the most important organization involved in falsified documents in the United States was a double-agent who worked for Cuba and the United States. His codename was Lázaro.
In statements to EFE, Lázaro (whose real name is Robert Kelly) described the principal goal of “Tag Operation,” which was to prove Islamic terrorists used false documents sold by a [Mexican] group, however, the operation could not be completed because there was a lack of cooperation between U.S. security agencies.
Kelly (63-years old) is writing a book titled, Non Official Cover: The History of Lázaro (Sin cobertura oficial: la historia de Lázaro), where he relates his first mission was to infiltrate the Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence (Dirección de Inteligencia de Cuba) at the end of 1999 when he created a web page called La Voz de Cuba to defend the return of Elián González to his father.
He also asserts in his book that he was involved in the sale of SAM missiles in Nicaragua and in the defection of a Cuban scientist to the United States.
Mauricio Vicent wrote in today’s El Paísthat in the official media of Cuba there is talk of “reforms” that will be launched after August.
According to sources consulted by the daily, the Raul Castro government will make ”changes,” which include:
expansion of self-employment and above all the cooperativization of some services;
continuation of reductions in subsidies and social costs with the aim of making the system sustainable;
slowly reduce health services, which will have a social impact;
elimination of a dual currency;
renegotiate debt to cut financial tensions
Even sources of the Catholic Church and Spanish Foreign Ministry have heard Raúl Castro say “of the reforms.”
Vicent further adds, that sources say, Raúl Castro does not bet on Venezuela as a source of financial support and wants to avoid a repeat of what was experienced with the former Soviet Union, and the devastating economic crisis of the 1990s.
This speculation leads to the question, are there profound reforms underway that will encompass economic and political change or are they mere cosmetic changes to give an illusion and bide enough time for the Cuban regime to stay afloat until the next crisis imperils its existence?
Fidel Castro met with Cuban diplomats and warned of imminent nuclear war. [infobae]
Spanish diplomacy and the release of Cuban prisoners. [Radio Nederland]
Prime minister of Kuwait visits Cuba to sign bilateral agreements and the opening of a new embassy. [EFE]
EU diplomat: EU foreign ministers forced Spanish FM Moratinos to cede his obsession in negotiating with the Cuban government to change EU position on Cuba. [Diario de Sevilla]
El Salvador’s president will sign a bi-national aeronautical agreement with Cuba when he visits the island. [Chances]
The 73-year-old great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell was sentenced to life in prison without parole for quietly spying for Cuba for nearly a third of a century from inside the State Department. His wife was sentenced to 5½ years. Retired intelligence analyst Kendall Myers said he meant his country no harm and stole secrets only to help Cuba’s people who “have good reason to feel threatened” by U.S. intentions of ousting the communist Castro government. [AP via Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
(Image: Artist rendering of Kendall Myers and his wife in U.S. Federal Court. The couple shared an admiration of the Cuban revolution. By Getty Images.)
UPDATE 20100716 @ 1548: I received an email from Jorge Piñon (Visiting Research Fellow with the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University and former president of Amoco Oil Latin America) pointing out that the Russians are not in deep waters, in fact, they are in two blocks of shallow waters as seen in the map (click image to expand further).
20100714 @ 0825: Russian state oil company Zarubezhneft plans to drill a shelf near Cuba in 2011. Zarubezhneft and the Cuban national oil company, Cubapetroleo, signed four contracts in November 2009 to conduct geologic explorations and hydrocarbon production. The contracts were the first long-term contracts between Russia and Cuba in the last 20 years. [RIA Novosti]
Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas and editor in chief of Americas Quarterly, argues for lifting the communications embargo on Cuba in the July/August 2010 issue of Foreign Policy magazine:
This leaves Washington in a quandary. Last week’s release of the 52 prisoners — independent journalists and human rights activists rounded up in the March, 2003 Black Spring crackdown — may have reduced the number of political prisoners rotting in Cuban jails to the lowest level in decades, but it was still, at best, a superficial act. Restrictions and state control over freedom of association and expression remain and there are still scores of prisoners being held for the inventive and uniquely Cuban offense of peligrosidad — “dangerousness” — often used to round up opponents under vague accusations of espionage. In addition to the now-estimated 120 political prisoners held in Cuban jails, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor Alan Gross, arrested in December for distributing laptops and cell phones to Cuba’s small Jewish community, remains in prison without formal charges brought against him.
Given this, it would be a mistake for Washington to overreact, engaging Havana with open arms over what was, in effect, a publicity stunt by the Castro brothers. On the other hand, intentionally antagonizing the regime by ramping up demands or dismissing the gesture would be equally damaging.
But the United States can respond to this gesture in a way that benefits Cuban society and individuals without legitimizing the regime or provoking a hostile reaction by the anti-Castro lobby in the United States. Ironically, that means doing what President Barack Obama has promised to do all along: follow through on his pledge from last April to loosen restrictions on U.S. telecom activities in Cuba and assist U.S. business in providing the tools for Cubans to communicate beyond the prison walls of the Castros’ island nation.
Unlike lifting the trade embargo on Cuba, which would require an act of Congress, these changes could be made by executive order, avoiding a politically costly battle with pro-embargo legislators. But more importantly, granting greater scope for U.S. telecom companies to sell cell-phones, software, and laptops in Cuba and establish the necessary infrastructure to make them work — such as cell phone towers and routers — would look generous, while loosening the Castro regime’s control over its people.
Earlier today the pro-dialogue/anti-embargo Cuba Study Group founded by Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas in collaboration with Americas Society/Council of the Americas, and Brookings Institution released a 48-page report on empowering the Cuban people through technology with recommendations for private and public sector leaders.
(Image: Cuban telecommunications monopoly ETECSA telephones. By Ecopolis.)
If the prisoners — who include journalists, community organisers and opposition figures — are indeed set free, this would be a major concession on the part of the Castro government. It appears to be designed for external consumption, however. It could lead to improvements in Cuba’s foreign relations, particularly with Spain and other EU nations. EU foreign ministers will take up the issue of whether to uphold their “common position” on Cuba at their next summit in September. That position requires that the EU conduct an annual assessment of the human-rights situation in Cuba. Spain has been lobbying for some time for that requirement to be dropped.
However, the prisoner releases probably do not signal coming democratisation or any moves to provide Cubans with greater political rights. Moreover, there has been no fundamental shift in the tolerance of opposition. While discussions with Church representatives were under way in early June, the authorities rounded up and briefly detained 37 members of two dissident groups, Agenda para la Transición (Agenda for the Transition) and Unidad Liberal de la República de Cuba (the Cuban Republic’s Liberal Unity). Ostensibly this was to prevent two meetings due to take place in the house of a prominent dissident, Héctor Palacios, although the meetings proceeded any way.
Further, the Cuban Commission on Human Rights claims there are more than 100 additional political prisoners in Cuban jails.
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The administration of President Barack Obama has taken modest steps towards improving relations with Cuba, such as eliminating Bush-era restrictions on travel to the island by Cuban-Americans and on their remittance of funds to their relatives. However, aware that the Cuba problem cannot be solved easily or quickly, the Obama government has decided to make no additional moves on Cuba policy in the approach to the US mid-term elections in November. Nonetheless, a campaign in the US legislature to weaken economic sanctions has continued. Two bills are advancing through Congress, one to facilitate US food sales to Cuba (by eliminating the need for Cuba to pay in cash in advance) and the other to remove restrictions on travel for US citizens. Although improvement on the human-rights front would help these bills’ prospects, final passage is highly uncertain.
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In the absence of normalisation of political and commercial ties with Washington, Cuba’s relations with Venezuela will remain an important source of support for the economy. These are based on favourable terms of trade that link Cuba’s oil imports to the supply of healthcare and education professionals to Venezuela. If Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, were to be forced out of office, there would be a risk that current arrangements might be scaled back.
Partly reflecting this uncertainty, the Cuban authorities will continue to broaden international economic ties with other friendly countries, notably China, Brazil and Russia, which are becoming ever-more important trade partners. Restoring good relations with the EU would also help to mitigate the growing reliance on, and risks associated with, Havana’s links to Venezuela.
A day after giving a rare television interview, Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro made a public appearance at an economic think tank in Havana, state-run television said, showing his photos. [AFP]
Newsweek magazine on the new tactics for an aged regime:
But Havana has already turned the concession to quick advantage. By taking the most obvious human-rights issue off the table, Raúl Castro has driven a new wedge between U.S. and European policies. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, who helped broker the deal, crowed that European negotiation, not American confrontation, had triumphed. Besides, the prisoner release is more symbol than substance. Cuba continues to detain critics, often for short periods, with no formal charges. Harassment and censorship have proved adequate to control the populace. Despite growing discontent over corruption, public protest is almost unknown. The Castro regime may be broke, but it’s firmly in control.
The following screen captures of Fidel Castro are from his pre-taped appearance (a video montage?) on the Mesa Redonda (Round Table) television program with Randy Alonso transmitted via Cubavision Internacional at 6:30 P.M. today, which shows him deteriorated, frail-looking and with visible tremors.
Also present in the program were historian Rolando Rodriguez, economist Osvaldo Martínez and Dr. Carlos Gutiérrez, director of the National Center of Scientific Investigation, however, they did not utter a word.
Topic discussion was the Middle East and a future outbreak of war between the United States and Iran. There was no discussion about Cuban issues (e.g. political prisoners’ release or pressing issues facing the country).
Castro’s voice throughout the program has been hoarse (perhaps because of prior intubation), slow and slurred at times.
He paused on occasion to collect his thoughts, which for an octogenarian is understandable, however, he confused the countries of North and South Korean.
Global intelligence agencies, primarily the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), are reviewing the video in detail for Fidel Castro’s present level of cognitive capacity, speech pattern and motor skills.
(Images: First image is of Randy Alonso introducing Fidel Castro; Second image is of Fidel Castro listening to his introduction; Third image is Fidel Castro making a point about the United States involvement in the Middle East. Forth image is of Fidel Castro shuffling papers to reference a cable he is discussing. Screen captures are from the Mesa Redonda television program transmitted via Cubavision Internacional.)
The faceless capitalists of Wall Street have long considered Venezuela a “sell” – the oil producing country’s foreign currency bonds are considered almost twice as risky as Greece’s. But might even Cuba’s revolutionary gerontocracy now believe the same?
For those who like to look at the world through the lens of financial conspiracies, that’s one tentative reading of why Cuba pledged last week to release 52 political prisoners. Yes, the issue was attracting unwelcome international attention. But it is also true that throughout its history, Cuba has been a master at playing its geo-strategic cards. The US and the USSR used to play the role of sugar daddy to the country before. Lately it’s been President Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. But Venezuela’s economy, like Cuba’s, is now in a mess.
Any move that suggests Cuba wants to improve ties with the US – and freeing political prisoners is one step that could ease the US travel ban and, ultimately, the embargo – therefore represents a hedging of Cuba’s geo-strategic bets. Looked at another way, it is also a tacit recognition by Havana that Caracas, despite its similar ideological outlook and oil wealth, might now be, in traders’ parlance, an “underperform”.
The list of reasons of why Cuba – or Wall Street – might think so is long and growing. Venezuela this year tightened capital controls as it no longer has sufficient reserves to sustain the capital flight of the last year. Oil sector output – according to independent estimates – has fallen considerably over the past decade due to a lack of investment. And the country also faces a large and rising contingent liability in the form of unpaid compensation owed to private business that have been nationalised by Mr Chávez.
There are currently 11 lawsuits and arbitration claims totalling $43.5bn lodged with the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement on Investment Disputes. The bulk of this relates to a $10bn claim by ExxonMobil and a $30bn claim by ConocoPhillips. Looked at another way, according to local consulting firm Ecoanalitica, Mr Chavez has announced nationalizations of some $23bn since 2006, and of that amount, the authorities have paid almost $9bn, leaving $14bn owing.
Lately, brokers only tend to recommend buying Venezuelan bonds on the basis of how long they need to hold them and not lose money. (About 4 years, assuming current 15 per cent yields and a recovery rate of 30 cents on the dollar.) With the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East, and a relatively comfortable foreign reserves position, Venezuela certainly can pay, should it wish to. The question for investors in a country where the government calls its private brokers a “tumor” is: how long will it? The Castro brothers may have given a clue.
(Image: Fidel Castro is seen on 18 June, 2008 in Havana during a meeting with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his brother Raúl Castro. By AFP/GETTY Images.)
Granma, the Cuban Communist Party’s daily, reports that Fidel Castro will appear this evening at 6:30 P.M. on a special Mesa Redonda television program.
Call it military rule 2.0. And as a result, in many developing countries the military is more powerful than it has been in years. Thailand, where the military once seemed to have retreated to the barracks, now finds the armed forces playing a critical role in the current political standoff. In Pakistan, which also appeared headed toward democracy a decade ago, the military has returned to its role as the central power base. From Mexico to Peru to Honduras, Latin America has over the past five years witnessed a weakening of civilian rule over the military, as the armed forces act with increasing impunity.
Cuba’s announcement that it will free 52 political prisoners over the next four months is a welcome development, but Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos’ claim that this opens a “new phase in Cuba” is ludicrous.
[...]
First, Cuba has a long history of using political prisoners as a bargaining chip, releasing a handful of prisoners in exchange for economic or diplomatic concessions, and later rounding up the next batch.
[...]
Second, even if Cuba keeps its word and releases the 52 dissidents in an effort to get the European investments it desperately needs, that would only be less than a third of the island’s political prisoners.
[...]
Third, we still don’t know whether this will be a prisoners’ release, or a forced deportation. In the past, Cuba has tended to release political prisoners who agree to go into exile. A Roman Catholic Church statement announcing the prisoners’ release last week said they “will be able” to leave the country, but did not specify what will happen with those who want to stay.
Fourth, and most important, the Cuban regime is not even talking about modifying articles 72 and 73 of its criminal code, an Orwellian legislation that allows it to put people behind bars before they committed a crime on the mere suspicion that they may commit one in the future.
[...]
My opinion: I agree. Instead of following Moratinos’ recommendation, the European Union should be a little imaginative, and tell Cuba: “We applaud your move, and we are ready to lift our Common Position, but you must take a few minimal steps to show that you are ready to start abiding by United Nations-sanctioned fundamental rights.”
“Don’t panic, we are not talking about the big things, such as free elections, or a multiparty system, like the U.S. laws demand,” the Europeans could say. “We are just asking for small things, such as allowing all Cubans uncensored access to the Internet, freedom to meet with whomever they want, or allowing dissidents to write and publish on the island.”
Of course, the Cuban regime will not go along because it knows that it would not survive if Cuba ceases to be a police state.
But it would put Cuba’s dictatorship on the spot, and help put the latest headlines about the prisoners’ release in proper perspective.
A frail-looking Fidel Castro visited the National Center of Scientific Investigation in Havana on 7 July 2010. This is his first public visit since 2006. [Juventud Rebelde]
Of course we welcome the release of the dissidents, who were arrested during a government crackdown in the spring of 2003, even as we question why the Cuban government needs three to four months to free them, and why the prisoners apparently must trade jail for exile. Furthermore, Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, has identified another 115 political prisoners who will not be released. That may be fewer than at any other time since the 1959 revolution, as Sanchez says, but it is still unacceptable.
So too are the laws and lack of due process that landed the dissidents in jail, and the conditions in which they are held. The prisoners are critics of the government, not violent plotters. And it’s too easy for the government to refill the jails; that’s what happened the last time it freed scores of detainees, following Pope John Paul II’s 1998 visit to the island. As Amnesty International stated in a report published last month, “Those who voice views beyond those permitted by the authorities continue to be intimidated and harassed, arbitrarily detained or imprisoned after unfair, often summary, trials.”
The European Union will revise its “Common Position” which conditions the position of the community over links with Cuba about the human rights situation on the island. [Clarín]
Cuban Catholic Church and the Spanish government set up mechanism to free Cuban political prisoners. [El País]
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is “hopeful” after prisoners release and welcomes agreement between the Cuban Catholic Church and Cuban government. [IPS]
German and European editorials opine over the liberation of Cuban political prisoners. [Deutsche Welle Español]
Despite the liberation of some Cuban dissidents, many stay in prison. [Human Rights Watch]
CUBA’S leadership understands only too well how starving to death can help a cause. In 2000 Fidel Castro, who had apparently been moved by the plight of Irish republican hunger-strikers, approved the construction in Havana of a memorial to Bobby Sands and his fellow prisoners. Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein’s leader, attended its unveiling.
Now, the same form of protest has been turned on Cuba’s rulers. In February Orlando Zapata, a 42-year-old plumber and bricklayer, died after 12 weeks without food. He was demanding better conditions in Cuba’s grim prisons. A second hunger-striker, Guillermo Fariñas, is critically ill. Although not in jail, he is calling for the release of 25 ailing prisoners. In an online letter he said dying would be an “honour”.
The tactic has worked. On July 7th, Cuba’s Catholic church announced that the government had told it that 52 prisoners arrested in 2003 would be freed from jail. Five were set to leave immediately, and the rest are expected to be liberated (but then exiled) in the next few months. If implemented, it will be Cuba’s first mass-release of political prisoners since 1998.
The hunger strikes were probably what prodded Raúl Castro, who became Cuba’s president in 2006, to act. They were attracting unwelcome attention. In May Jaime Ortega, the cardinal of Havana, negotiated the lifting of a ban on marches by the Ladies in White, a group of wives and mothers of political prisoners, and an end to their harassment by government-organised mobs. He later convinced Raúl Castro to free a paraplegic prisoner, Ariel Sigler.
International pressure also grew stronger. The church called in reinforcements from abroad: last month the Vatican’s senior diplomat, Dominique Mamberti, went to Cuba and met the president. That trip was followed on July 6th by a visit from Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Spain’s foreign minister. The timing of the prisoners’ release—as well as the decision to send the first five to Spain—seems to have been aimed at giving Mr Moratinos something to show for his effort.
Official Cuban media damns political prisoners as “mercenaries” in the pocket of the United States. This release will reduce their number by about a third, leaving 100 or so in jail—half the average of recent years. The outbreak of clemency suggests that Raúl Castro may have decided that exiling dissidents is easier than locking them up: as one Western diplomat in Havana says, the president “seems to view [the prisoners] as an unfortunate inheritance from his brother.” Their release will improve relations with the European Union, which will meet in September to discuss Cuba, and encourage those in America who want to loosen trade and travel restrictions on the country.
But Fidel Castro, who is still the power behind the throne in Cuba, may block any attempt to free the remaining prisoners, even if they are sent overseas. In 1955, as a young revolutionary, he was freed from jail by Fulgencio Batista, a dictator, following international pressure. He knows better than anyone what happened next.
“These liberations will not mean a significant improvement in the terrible situation of human rights that exists in Cuba,” he said. “It’s opening the prisons a little, and not to everyone.” —Elizardo Sanchez, Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation
Cuba’s communist authorities are to free at least 52 political prisoners (destined for exile in Spain), Catholic Church officials in the capital Havana said. [BBC]
The Archdiocese of Havana’s Press Release (pdf) on the prisoners’ release.
An El Salvadoran national detained in Caracas will be extradited “in the coming hours” to Cuba, where he is wanted for a string of terrorist bombings in the late 1990s. [Wall Street Journal]
Some changes are in the works for Radio and TV Martí. [Radio World]
Spanish FM: Spain hopes Cuba’s agreement with Roman Catholic leaders that led to the release of one political prisoner for health reasons and transfers to jails closer to home for a dozen others is just the beginning. [AP]
Prominent Cuban dissident, Guillermo Fariñas, continues his hunger strike and has developed a blood clot that could kill him, Cuba’s government said in an unprecedented official report in the Communist Party state-run newspaper. [Los Angeles Times]
Local leaders of Cuba’s Communist Party want to expel a prominent academic for an article decrying widespread corruption. [AP]
U.S. Congress reviewing Cuban sanctions, may lift travel ban. [WaPo]
Council on Foreign Relations and its Cuban agent of influence. [Babalú Blog]
For decades, the Castro government has been very effective in repressing dissent in Cuba by, among other things, preventing its critics from publishing or broadcasting their views on the island. Yet in recent years the blogosphere has created an outlet for a new kind of political criticism that is harder to control. Can it make a difference? [New York Review of Books Blog]
Foreign Policy magazine lists the bottom 20 countries and territories (Cuba is among those twenty) with the least freedom on Earth from Freedom House’s 2010 Freedom in the World report.
George Mason University’s History News Network has an interesting interview with Daniel Masterson, History Professor at the United Stated Naval Academy, about the Cuban Embargo, South American security, and teaching America’s “Officers-In-Training”:
Cuba has what I call a “septocracy”—an oligarchy of 70-year-olds. It is similar to China in this regard. When Raul Castro came to power, there was an opportunity for Cuba’s “politburo” to be filled with younger members, but that didn’t happen, because the septocrats didn’t want to hand over their power.
Real reform will come when both Castros are gone. There have been changes in recent years, but these are slow and few. Cuban citizens have been allowed a degree of personal freedom—they are allowed to use cell phones, for example—and are taking more trips outside the country.
Regarding the Cuban army, I might have used a different expression than “burying the hatchet.” I was actually referring to a kind of shift in perspective which I had heard about from a Canadian journalist who spent a couple of years in Cuba studying the army. He told me that what he observed was that army had a new respect for the American military because of what it perceived as the American military’s remarkable ability to recover itself after Vietnam —a catastrophic war for America. This was at a time when the Cuban army had lost its Soviet support, so it basically had to reinvent itself. It watched the U.S. military rebuild itself so successfully after catastrophe, and then carry out the 1990 Gulf War. So there was a kind of “favorable” view of the enemy, an attitude of, “We can do it too, once we bridge the economic storm.” Instead of the usual “imperalist versus anti-imperialist” position, there was a “soldier to soldier” approach.
Could this mean an attempt at a Cuban military “comeback”? I don’t think so. The Soviets are gone. Who would sponsor the Cuban military? The army will change with a younger generation leading it.
The number of political prisoners in Cuba has dropped to 167, the lowest total since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power, said the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights. The decline comes amid possible signs that the Cuban government is preparing to release more jailed dissidents. The 167 prisoners is a decline from 201 at the end of 2009 and is the lowest number in 51 years. [Reuters]
(Image: Declaration of Independence painting by John Trumbull depicting the moment on June 28, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress. By The Architect of the Capitol.)
The lease to the United States by the Government of Cuba of Certain Areas of Land and Water for Naval or Coaling Stations in Guantanamo and Bahia Honda was signed 107 years ago today. [Avalon Project]
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos will visit Cuba early next week (Mon. through Thurs.) to support dialogue between the Catholic Church and Cuban government, while opposing dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas’ hunger-strike. [La Vanguardia]
UN General Assembly president met with Cuban First VP José Ramón Machado Ventura discussing global themes. [Prensa Latina]
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak received Cuban ambassador Otto Vaillant with his credentials. [Prensa Latina]
36% of Latin Americans have a poor opinion about Cuba; 40% have a favorable one. [Latinobarómetro]
Spanish oil company Repsol YPF SA, said it plans to drill off Cuba, about 60 miles south of Key West, Florida, early next year. If successful, this would likely kick off a spate of exploration. Only one deepwater well has been drilled in Cuban waters, by Repsol in 2004. The effort found oil but not enough to justify commercial development. [Wall Street Journal]
(Image: Repsol offshore oil exploration rig. Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF has contracted with a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA for a drilling rig that some sources said was bound for operation in Cuba’s still untapped offshore fields. 5 May 2010.)
China could help Cuba cover its banking system’s liquidity deficit with a multibillion dollar loan. Havana has already asked for a $3B loan. The cause of the liquidity crisis is attributed to lack payments by Cuban banks worth between $600M and $1B in 2009 according to United Nations’ CEPAL data (pdf). [ANSA]
Cuba’s repressive legal system has created a climate of fear among journalists, dissidents and activists, putting them at risk of arbitrary arrest and harassment by the authorities.
The Cuban Council of State has relieved José Silvano Hernández Bernárdez of his post as the Minister of Light Industry.
Damar Maceo will replace him. Maceo, 47-years-old, has a degree in Economic Planning and held the post of First Vice-Minster of Domestic Commerce, reported Prensa Latina.
Hernández will be assigned other undeclared responsibilities as announced in an official note read on state-run television.
(Image: José Hernández sacked by the Council of State. By cubagov.cu)
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has broken up an eleven member deep-cover Russian spy ring that included a Peruvian born journalist (with pro-Castro sympathies) along with her husband who wrote a column for Spanish daily El Diario-La Prensa in New York.
The New York Times has published the criminal complaints from the U.S. Justice Department.
Babalú Blog has more on a possible Cuban connection.
(Image: Peruvian born journalist Vicky Peláez is accused of being a Russian spy involved in a conspiracy to commit money laundering. By El Diario NY.)
The Cuban Economy has news of “a major technological breakthrough in the production of “NPI” (nickel pig iron), a substitute for refined nickel mined and concentrated in Cuba.”
This will probably reduce Cuba’s foreign exchange earnings from nickel exports in future, and will likely halt any expansions of nickel mining for years or even decades to come.
Esteban Morales, the Cuban academic who wrote the article “Corruption: The True Counterrevolution?” (published by the National Artists and Writers Union of Cuba in early April 2010, and later removed from its website) criticizing government corruption in Cuba as the greatest threat to the island’s communist system has been stripped of membership in the Cuban Communist Party as punishment for his criticism, reportsHavana Times.
According to a Cuban National Statistics Office report released yesterday, international shipping to and from the island nation of Cuba fell by more than 60 percent in 2009 as the country slashed imports to deal with a foreign exchange crisis. [Reuters]
(Image: Port of Havana. By SchneiderSvan, Wikimedia Commons)
Stratforanalytical article on insurgent/terrorist groups using criminal activity to fund its operations. A reference is made within the piece to the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS):
For the militant group, the addition of a state sponsor can provide an array of modern weaponry and a great deal of useful training. For example, the FIM-92 Stinger missiles that the United States gave to Afghan militants fighting Soviet forces greatly enhanced the militants’ ability to counter the Soviets’ use of air power. The training provided by the Soviet KGB and its allies, the Cuban DGI and the East German Stasi, revolutionized the use of improvised explosive devices in terrorist attacks. Members of the groups these intelligence services trained at camps in Libya, Lebanon and Yemen, such as the German Red Brigades, the Provincial Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the Japanese Red Army and various Palestinian militant groups (among others), all became quite adept at using explosives in terrorist attacks.
An audit conducted by the Cuban government in 20 percent of state-owned enterprises found in April “deficiencies,” “administrative chaos,” and a lack of respect for legal norms among other irregularities. [Granmaand EFE]
In his study, Dr. Millett offers a survey of U.S. military involvement in the training of indigenous security forces in the Philippines and the Caribbean Basin in the 20th century.
He includes a chapter on the U.S. military’s Cuban experience:
The American effort to form a nonpolitical, constabulary must be judged as a failure. In part this was because US control over events in Cuba was always partial and of limited duration. The Cuban political elites played on American desires to withdraw from Cuba and on Washington’s fear of internal disorders first to influence the development of the Rural Guard and then to make it subordinate to a clearly political (and probably unnecessary) army.
The U.S. Defense Department’s conduct of stability operations throughout the world includes training and advising foreign security forces.
Once Castroism is no longer Cuba’s form of government and a pro-democratic transition government is formed by Cubans, the U.S. military could consider “What’s past is prologue” metaphor in Shakespeare’s Tempest with its earlier experience training Cuban security forces in probable future stability ops on the island.
Such training of Cuban forces should ideally instill adherence to the defense of a constitutional republic and subjugated to civilian-control.
Jorge Castañeda’s (former Mexican foreign minister and NYU professor) piece on geopolitics in Latin America and the two competing regional blocs: “Americas-1″—nations neutral to the conflict between the United States and Venezuela/Cuba or are openly opposed to the “Bolivariano” governments of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela; and “Americas-2″—radical left nations moderately retreating but able to support their positions and defeat any attempts to cut their influence.
Army General and Cuban president Raúl Castro is number 21 of the world’s 23 worst tyrants as ranked in the July/August 2010 issue of Foreign Policy magazine.
(Image: George B.N. Ayittey, “The Worst of the Worst,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2010 issue.)
Cuba scored 80.6 and ranked 76 overall in 177 states.
The rank order of the states is based on the total scores of the 12 indicators: Demographic Pressures, Refugees/IDPs, Group Grievance, Human Flight, Uneven Development, Economic Decline, Delegitimization of the State, Public Services, Human Rights, Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites, and External Intervention.
The island nation is in danger of becoming a failed state.
FP and FfP quantify a failed state as having several attributes: “One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.”
The trip to Cuba by the Holy See’s chancellor, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, ended yesterday in a symbolic meeting with Army General Raúl Castro.
The reunion with the Cuban president was a colophon of a visit that has served as a diplomatic operation accompanied by mediation efforts of the Cuban church, and leaving the ground ready for future harvests.
No one knows when the next release of prisoners, nor how many there will be, but it is certain that there will be releases and that they will be soon.
Via Cuban state media: 1700 officers receive the grade of Lieutenant from military academies (General Antonio Maceo Inter-Arms School, José Maceo Inter-Arms School, Granma Naval Academy, National School of Special Troops Baraguá, Comandante Arides Estévez Superior Military School, José Martí Military-Technical Institute, and FAR Medical Sciences University) throughout the island.
(Image: Graduates of the José Martí Military-Technical Institute. Radio Reloj.)
The director of Knight Case Studies Initiative at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Kirsten Lundberg, has written a 28-page case study entitled: “When the story is us: Miami Herald, Nuevo Herald and Radio Marti,”on what transpired (investigative process and reactions) when journalist Oscar Corral reported in 2006 that Miami‐area journalists had accepted money from Radio/TV Martí.
Cuba and the United States begin a third round of talks over immigration, and on background, the detention of Alan Gross, a U.S. contractor accused of spying by Havana. [EFE]
Bernardo Pericás, Brazil’s ambassador in Cuba, met with Army General Raúl Castro before ending his mission to the island. [Prensa Latina]
Chinese ambassador in Cuba, Liu Yuqin, confirmed the participation of Chinese oil companies in petrol-chemical projects in the island. [El Financiero]
The Cuban government has accepted Rolando Drago Rodríguez’s designation as Chile’s new ambassador in Cuba. [Cooperativa]
Via EFE: Dissident Oswaldo Payá (coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement) criticized the negotiation process between Catholic authorities and the Cuban government for excluding dissidents and claimed that the Church should act as “facilitator” of dialogue between all parties.
Vatican chancellor Archbishop Dominique Mamberti said he will not meet with dissidents or leaders of the opposition during his five-day visit to Cuba.
More on the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Cuban government from Radio Nederland.
(Images: Oswaldo Payá, Salon; and Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Reuters.)
Via Cuban state media: Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez (Vice-President, Council of State and Ministers) has called energy consumption on the island, during the months of May and June, as critical with the tendency of increasing in both state and residential sectors.
Valdés also called for extreme energy conservation.
The U.S. State Department released a report earlier this week on trafficking in persons for 2010, and leveled against Cuba:
Cuba is principally a source country for children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically commercial sexual exploitation within the country. Some Cuban medical professionals have stated that postings abroad are voluntary and well paid; however, others have claimed that their services “repaid” Cuban government debts to other countries and their passports were withheld as they performed their services. The scope of trafficking within Cuba is difficult to gauge due to the closed nature of the government and sparse non-governmental or independent reporting.
The Government of Cuba does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. In a positive step, the Government of Cuba shared information about human trafficking and its efforts to address the issue. However, the government did not prohibit all forms of trafficking during the reporting period, nor did it provide specific evidence that it prosecuted and punished trafficking offenders, protected victims of all forms of trafficking, or implemented victim protection policies or programs to prevent human trafficking.
(Image: Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s North American affairs office, who issued a statement by the Cuban gov’t regarding the U.S. State Dept.’s human trafficking report. Prensa Latina.)
Simon Romero of the New York Timesreports on Venezuela’s military ties with Cuba:
But the quiet expansion of Cuba’s military role here has raised a particular concern among critics of Mr. Chávez, who maintain that the military is being retooled — with Cuba’s help — into an institution that can be used to quell any domestic challenge to the president.
[...]
Carlos A. Romero, a political scientist at the Central University of Venezuela who researches military ties with Cuba, estimates that there are 500 Cuban military advisers in the country, including an elite group of about 20 officers operating from Fuerte Tiuna, the country’s main garrison.
[...]
Some changes in military strategy here already reflect the Cuban model, including an emphasis on preparing for an eventual invasion by the United States; the growth of the Bolivarian militia, an armed civilian force similar to Cuba’s Territorial Militia; and a focus on forging military policy within the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the regional political group led by Venezuela and Cuba.
[...]
Mr. Chávez has also made it clear that any rumbling within the military, over Cuban advisers or other issues, would have consequences. He rarely loses a chance to remind other military branches of the growing might of the militia, which has some 300,000 reservists and is designed to operate at his command. At a recent parade of reservists, Mr. Chávez called on them to “sweep away the bourgeoisie” if he were assassinated.
Vatican Foreign MinisterArchbishop Dominique Mamberti will begin his five-day visit to Cuba tomorrow.
Reuters characterizes the Catholic church, in its wire story of the visit, as “flexing its political muscle and calling for change on the communist-led island”:
The concessions by the Cuban government have raised hopes that more prisoners will be freed in a gesture to Mamberti, who is the third Vatican official to come to Cuba since Raul Castro succeeded older brother Fidel Castro as president in 2008.
Mamberti is scheduled to meet with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, as well as take part in a church conference where Cuban intellectuals, including several exiles from the United States, will discuss key issues on the island.
His official reason for coming to Cuba is to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of Vatican-Cuba diplomatic relations.
Archbishop Mamberti’s visit coincides with a four-day conference organised by the Catholic Church in Havana and its current agenda includes issues that go beyond Church questions, e.g. the economy, migration and the relations between Cubans at home and abroad.
Cuban-American academics Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Domínguez are allowed to attend, while Dagoberto Valdés and Oswaldo Payá are not.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal details Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s trend toward defending despots:
The repressive Iranian government is only the latest example. There is also Lula’s unconditional support for Cuba’s dictatorship and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. In February, Cuba allowed political dissident Orlando Zapata to starve to death the same week Lula arrived on the island slave plantation to hobnob with the Castro brothers. When asked by the press about Zapata, Lula dismissed his death as one of many by hunger-strikers in history that the world ignored. He obviously never heard of the Irish militant Bobby Sands.
(Image: Lula da Silva meets with Fidel and Raúl Castro in Havana on 24 February 2010. Juventud Rebelde.)
Alberto Pérez Giménez comments in today’s ABC (one of Spain’s national newspapers) about Jorge Masetti’s history with Latin American terrorist groups trained in Havana.
And also, how Vilma Espín (Raúl Castro’s deceased wife) served as hostess at dinner parties with “Basque fighters” in attendance.
ETA, per Pérez Giménez, remains under the protection of the Cuban regime.
(Image: 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of ETA. Radio Netherlands Worldwide.)
El Universal‘s interview with Simon Bolivar University graduate professor José Machillanda, who analyzes in his forthcoming book the transformation of a once professional military in Venezuela into a mere armed militia:
A professional military at the service of the State for the purposes of defense has turned into an armed militia under a political project. Hugo Chávez has “transmuted” the military to secure both his stay in office and the implementation of the 21st century socialism.
[...]
2002-2007 In the aftermath of the coup attempt on April 11, 2002, there was a void of power with top military officers being unable to put order in the Venezuelan society. The purge began, as well as the enforcement of new laws and the adoption of a new Cuban-style doctrine of “people’s war.” Corruption prevailed; Cuban militaries had a high profile. In this period, the president managed to centralize all administrative functions; reduced strategic studies and logistics, and fully implemented training and intelligence of the Cuban militia.
BBC Mundo is reporting the Cuban government will release dissident Ariel Sigler Amaya, who is hospitalized, informed the Archbishop of Havana as a result of recent talks between the Catholic Church and Army General Raúl Castro.
Six other prisoners (Juan Adolfo Fernández Sáinz, Omar Moisés Ruiz Hernández, Efrén Fernández Fernández, Jesús Mustafá Felipe, Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta and Héctor Fernando Maceda) will be transferred to provincial prisons where they resided.
Army General Raúl Castro named Gustavo Rodríguez (an agronomist) as the new Minister of Agriculture to increase agricultural production in the country, reports EFE. Tonight’s announcement was made on state-run television.
Rodríguez (46) held several posts in the sugar sector and as current Vice-Minister of Agriculture.
Brigade General Ulises Rosales del Toro was the Minister of Agriculture before Rodríguez and will now oversee the Ministries of Sugar, Agriculture and Food Industry.
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In early May, the Brookings Institutionpublished a study on U.S.-Cuba environmental cooperation when dealing with the potential risks of oil exploration in shared ocean waters:
As Cuba continues to develop its deepwater oil and natural gas reserves, the consequence to the United States of a similar mishap occurring in Cuban waters moves from the theoretical to the actual. The sobering fact that a Cuban spill could foul hundreds of miles of American coastline and do profound harm to important marine habitats demands cooperative and proactive planning by Washington and Havana to minimize or avoid such a calamity. Also important is the planning necessary to prevent and, if necessary, respond to incidents arising from this country’s oil industry that, through the action of currents and wind, threaten Cuban waters and shorelines.
(Image: Repsol offshore oil exploration rig. Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF has contracted with a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA for a drilling rig that some sources said was bound for operation in Cuba’s still untapped offshore fields. 5 May 2010.)
U.S. Army War College‘s Strategy Research Project released earlier this year two unclassified student reports on U.S.—Cuba policy.
Both reports characterize U.S. foreign policy of the last half-century towards Cuba as a failure. Thus, these reports give an inkling to the mindset of officers from the U.S. Army War College about the strategy of fostering democratic transition in Cuba.
The first report, “United States Security Strategy Towards Cuba,” is written by Lieutenant Colonel Sergio M. Dickerson (U.S. Army). Lt. Col. Dickerson questions whether Cuba poses a security threat to the United States, and contends:
Although Cuba poses no traditional threats to the U.S., geographically, their 90-mile proximity should concern us. Our proximity to Cuba assures U.S. involvement, be it voluntary or involuntary, in a major crisis. Consider a disease outbreak that begins in Cuba over a break down in hygiene, government pollution or other misfortune attributable to economic strife. The disease has no boundaries and quickly reaches the Florida shores via travelling Cuban American citizens. This scenario could be mitigated or even preventable under the auspices of better relations. Aside from the obvious medical benefits a partnership provides, established communications with Cuba would likely prevent an uncontrolled spread in the U.S.
Regarding U.S. policy, he suggests:
Building American and Congressional support for engagement…establish a formal infrastructure establish a formal infrastructure that communicates to Cuba and the International Community at large that we’re serious about diplomatic engagement with Cuba. Finally, we must loosen embargo restrictions and expose Cubans to U.S. open markets, business opportunities and 21st Century living.
Colonel Lance R. Koenig (U.S. Army) wrote the second report, entitled: “Time for a New Cuba Policy.” Col. Koenig writes:
Nearly fifty years of attempts to isolate Cuba through economic sanctions, travel restrictions, and broken diplomatic relations has not provided the results the United States policy towards Cuba aimed to achieve. It is time for the United States to pursue its national interests with regard to Cuba and implement a completely new policy in order to improve regional security and economic stability in Latin America.
He recommends:
The option with the greatest possibility of success and reward for the United States is to support the Cuban people, but not the Cuban government.
Lift completely the economic embargo. Establish banking and financial relationships to facilitate the trading of goods and services between the two countries.
Lift completely the travel ban to allow not only Cuban-Americans with relatives but also all other Americans to travel to Cuba. This interaction of Americans with Cubans will help raise the awareness of Cubans about their northern neighbor.
Lift completely the travel ban to allow not only Cuban-Americans with relatives but also all other Americans to travel to Cuba. This interaction of Americans with Cubans will help raise the awareness of Cubans about their northern neighbor.
Col. Koenig also briefly addresses the issue of property restitution:
This leaves the issue of compensation for United States companies and individuals whose property was expropriated by the Cuban government. With the embargo lifted, the United States should enlist the assistance of the European Union and Canada to apply pressure to Cuba as well as to assist in negotiations with the World Trade Organization to address issues with illegally confiscated property.
“I regret that, in spite of its clear invitation, the government of Cuba has not allowed me to objectively assess the situation of torture and ill-treatment in the country by collecting first-hand evidence from all available sources,” he declared.
Nowak has made several fruitless attempts to visit the island since 2005.
Cuba has plans to split the province of Havana into two provinces in a move to make local government more efficient, state-run media said.
The division would cut travel distances for provincial employees, make services more accessible and add local political clout by giving each province its own capital.
The idea, hatched by the Cuban government and awaiting approval by the national parliament, appears to be part of Army General Raul Castro’s drive to improve the country’s productivity.
The two provinces, which have been proposed by the national government and await approval by the Cuban parliament, would be called Mayabeque and Artemisa.
[...]
The split would increase the number of provinces in Cuba by one, to 15.
U.S. federal law enforcement agencies (FBI and ICE) are hunting down al-Shabaab terrorists (an ally of al Qaeda) who illegally entered the U.S. from Kenya through Cuba, reports the New York Daily News.
al-Shabaab is an Islamic terrorist group that controls much of southern Somalia, excluding the capital, Mogadishu. It has waged an insurgency (using guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics) against Somalia’s transitional government and its Ethiopian supporters since 2006.
About 300 Somalis were managed to be smuggled into the United States by an American, Anthony Joseph Tracy. He did this by making a deal with a Cuban diplomats in Kenya, who got the Somalis visas to visit Cuba, and then arranged for them to fly on to South America, where they were eventually smuggled across the Mexican border into the United States.
(This story was originally reported here in April, 2010.)
A piece by Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans in the Chronicle of Higher Education examines the history of novelas del dictadorofthe bountiful past and barren present:
Latin American writers no longer command the kind of attention they did in the so-called Age of Revolution. During that time, in the 1960s and 70s, El Boom—as the rejuvenating aesthetic movement that brought Julio Cortázar, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, and others to the attention of international audiences was known—writers symbolized the collective spirit. They were the voice of the voiceless. But the voiceless are now anesthetized through TV, soccer, and other forms of consumerism. Literature has become inconsequential. And when the oppressed aren’t interested in literature, writers aren’t as likely to take on a political role defending them.
ABC (one of Spain’s national newspapers) on the fall of Hugo Chávez’s popularity that is sparking reinforced presence of Cubans in the Venezuelan military to consolidate his totalitarian project.
The detention of Gregorio “Greg” Sánchez Martínez (a leftist candidate for the Quintana Roo state governorship in Mexico) for money laundering and trafficking in illegal immigrants has exposed the nexus between Cuban intelligence and Mexican narcotraffickers, reports SIPSE.
El Financiero cites José Antonio Pérez Stuart, a columnist and expert on intelligence matters, who believes that the objective of the political association between Cuban intelligence and narcotraffickers is the penetration of Castro agents in Mexican territory in order to infiltrate Mexican politics, control government positions and utilize them to their benefit.
Behind the international campaign against the 2010 Arizona Immigration Law—SB1070 are bands of narco-communists, according to Pérez Stuart, in charge of infiltrating the United States from Mexico with Cuban, Chinese and Russian illegal immigrants.
Havana’s intelligence services are under suspicion for utilizing trafficking channels of illegal Cuban immigrants to infiltrate intelligence agents into the United States because their spy networks have been discovered/dismantled in recent years.
Sánchez Martínez’s wife, Niurka Alba Sáliva Benítez, is none other than the daughter of Cuban Ministry of Interior Colonel José Ángel Sáliva Pino (who works for Castro’s intelligence services and has always been close to Fidel and Raúl.)
She was involved in infiltrating Cubans, Russians and Chinese illegals.
Boris “El Boris” del Valle Alonso, linked to the Mexican criminal organization Los Zetas, worked with Niurka and kept tabs on the income generated from undocumented Cubans, Russians and Chinese.
Del Valle was Sánchez Martínez’s advisor because of his experience as a Cuban soldier in the Angolan civil war. He is also the son of an ex-Minister of the Interior by the name Sergio del Valle, who is the brother-in-law of Sánchez Martínez because he is Niurka Sáliva’s half-brother. El Boris is also related to Fidel Castro’s wife, Dalia Soto del Valle.
A thorough reporting of this Cuban espionage and Mexican narco/illegal immigrants trafficking web of criminal intrigue can be found here and here.
(First image: Gregorio Sánchez Martínez with his wife Niurka Alba Sáliva Benítez in 2007. Novedades De Quintana Roo; Second image: Boris del Valle Alonso. Por Esto! de Quinana Roo.)
However, a preview of the yearbook can be seen in a press release to the media, where an estimated total military expenditure in the Americas in 2009 was $738B.
Army General Raúl Castro turns 79 today with little celebration fanfare, reports Reuters:
Castro has spoken about future leaders only in general terms, saying in speeches there are many young Cubans who will maintain the revolution in coming years.
But time is becoming a precious commodity for the country’s leaders.
Castro’s immediate successor, first vice president Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, will turn 80 in October and the average age of all six vice presidents on the Council of State is 71.6 years.
They are all younger than Fidel Castro, who is 83 and has not appeared in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in 2006, but remains the head of the party.
Speculation on who will lead once this generation is gone ranges from younger members of the Castro family to younger military men now in high positions.
“But there are no obvious candidates, nor any who are clearly being groomed,” said another western diplomat.
The Obama administration has allowed an oil delegation travel clearance to Cuba out of fear that drilling efforts in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico could result in another toxic oil rig blowout.
The International Association of Drilling Contractors, which represents the global drilling industry, will send the United States’ first oil delegation to Cuba in order to enlighten that country’s emerging oil industry about safe offshore drilling practices. Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida’s coast, and any Cuban oil spill would feed directly into the Gulf of Mexico’s Loop Current, which would carry it up the Gulf Stream current onto the Florida Keys and other Florida beaches.
[...]
“The Cubans actually have approached us numerous times over the past decade asking if they could join the party, could they join IADC, could we come to them,” an IADC VP said.
State continues to plea for the release of Alan Gross, the USAID contractor arrested in Cuba for distributing satellite phones, laptops, and the like. The U.S. has been granted consular access to Gross five times, most recently on May 25.
Gross’ case is stalled as the Cuban government has yet to open a legal case against him.
The title of the book is derived from the Chinese proverb: “He who rides a tiger can never get off or the tiger will devour him.”
In his book preview editorial in La Razón, Botin writes, “In the shadow of his brother Fidel, the political life of Raúl Castro has been dark and hard; he has been the executive arm of the maximum leader’s desires.”
Interesting tidbits from the editorial:
GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A.), the Cuban Armed Forces’ holding company (managed by Raúl’s son-in-law Luis Alberto López Calleja), controls almost 70% of the country’s economy through transient businesses that generate almost 90% of exports, 60% of tourism revenues, around 25% of services revenues, 60% of currency revenues and more than 65% of all minor commerce in currency exchanges. The volume of annual profits surpasses $1B;
Raúl’s daughter Mariela Castro has taken the family’s monies out of the country with ease of travel as she is accompanied by her Italian husband, Paolo;
Raúl Castro visited Italy (after Fidel fell ill in 2006) to deposit millions of pesos, affirms exiled Cuban General José Quevedo;
Leninist machismo enjoys good health in Cuba as the perks of Raulistas within the military working in GAESA companies. They are a privileged class with higher incomes and a much higher standard of living not only to the civilian population but to their own comrades in arms serving a strictly military function in locations far away from the resorts.
In his national column, CIA Examiner, Robert Morton proposes tongue-in-cheek that the US outsource its domestic spying to the Chinese resulting from a recent ruling on a domestic surveillance program as being unconstitutional by a federal judge.
Why the Chinese? Well, they have a super-secret monitoring base in Bejucal, Cuba.
An excerpt from his piece:
Ever since a domestic surveillance program was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, I pose three reasons why Beijing should pick up the slack. First, our Asian friends have the opportunity to do it for us…in Cuba, China operates a super-secret complex that eavesdrops on our satellite-based military transmissions, the messages contained in our home and business faxes and e-mails…even the toppings we order on home-delivered pizzas!
CIA agents in Cuba grew suspicious when large numbers of names like Yang Chow and Yo-Yo Qian booked into hotels in Havana in the late 1990′s. Sure enough, a Chinese electronic espionage facility sprang up. In return, Beijing gave Castro electronic countermeasures to block Radio Martí from carrying pro-U.S. Radio~Miami and TV broadcasts into Cuba from Miami.
[...]
So, let’s entice their cloak-and-dagger operation near Bejucal, a small town south of Havana, to reprogram their orbiting satellites and ground based, state-of-the art signals intelligence hardware. Like a vacuum sweeping up dust particles off a carpet, they already suck up satellite-based U.S. military communications, along with business and personal computer e-mails, telex and fax messages. So, what’s the big deal about letting them inspect messages sent out from the U.S. to Al Quaida-friendly countries?
Morton further adds, “My outrageous outsourcing proposal underscores how legally and morally handcuffed our counter-intelligence services are. They need more help, but not from China.”
Cuba’s government has allowedGranma (Cuban Communist Party’s newspaper) to publish letters to the editor (here and here) critical of an economy devastated by decades of corruption and centralized power.
(Image: Granma, Carta a la dirección, 7 May 2010.)
A leftist guerrilla movement responsible for many kidnappings and attacks inside Mexico is secretly receiving funding from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The group, called the Ejercito Popular Revolucionario (EPR), is “a terrorist organization bent on destabilizing Mexico…Splinters of the group are also adding to the problem,” said a Mexican official who requested anonymity, reports the San Francisco Examiner.
The Examiner further added: “EPR has members that are former Cuban agents, Colombians, as well as others with an agenda to see a shift to the left in Mexico,” said a US military official.
(Image: An EPR guerrilla. Attacks by EPR to oil conglomerate PEMEX have caused serious economic damage to Mexico. EFE.)
Dirk Rijmenants of the Cipher Machines and Cryptology website authored a paper on the flaws attributed to communication methods used by the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) with its agents (e.g. Ana Belen Montes, Carlos and Elsa Alvarez, and Walter Kendall Myers) in operations against the United States as evidenced in FBI and U.S. District Courts’ documents:
One common link between all recent spy cases is how these agents received their operational messages. Apparently, the clandestine communication methods, described in this paper, are standard CuIS procedures. Despite CuIS using a cryptographic system, proven to be unbreakable, the FBI succeeded in reading some of these operational messages and subsequently used them in court. This paper is based on official FBI documents and the court papers on these espionage cases. It shows procedural and implementation flaws by the CuIS and its agents.
(Image: A “cheat sheet” provided by Cuban intelligence that Ana Montes used to help her encrypt and decrypt messages to and from her handlers. By Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Dr. José Azel (University of Miami) will present his book, Mañana in Cuba: The Legacy of Castroism and Transitional Challenges for Cuba, which book explores the mindset of Cubans living in a totalitarian system and the multitude of obstacles present in modern-day Cuba at Books and Books in Coral Gables, Florida on Wednesday, June 2 — Courtyard Reception: 7 p.m; Presentation: 8 p.m.
Esquire magazine takes a look at the statistics of countries that ban gays from serving in the military and that also embrace the death penalty.
Cuba, along with 16 other countries (see above infographic), ban homosexuals from serving in the military and also execute people.
The others are: China, Egypt, Iran, Jamaica, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Uganda, United States, and Yemen.
Army General Raul Castro presided over a meeting of the National Defense Council to analyze the results of the Bastion 2009 Strategic Exercise and other actions carried out last year to improve the country’s defense readiness.
Participants, during the meeting, discussed topics related to the improvement of the national defensive capacity including social economic activities and civil defense.
During the presentation of the official report of the Bastion 2009 exercise, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Army Corps General Alvaro Lopez Miera, said that military commanding and leading organs at tactic and strategic levels continued to improve their cohesion.
Raul Castro gave the closing remarks of the meeting and handed diplomas to participants in the Bastion 2009 exercise.
Present were government, state and Cuban Communist Party leaders as well as representatives from grass-roots organizations and high-ranking officials from the Cuban Armed Forces and the Interior Ministry.
(The original piece in Spanish was published in Juventud Rebelde.)
Prior to his professorship, he founded and directed the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior (an interdisciplinary behavioral science unit which provided assessments of foreign leadership and decision making for U.S. senior officials) during his 21-year career at the Agency.
He posits (the original assessment was made in the mid-90s—published in the periodical Problems of Post-Communism and updated for the book) on the psyche of Cuba’s longest ruling dictator:
Castro is a unique individual who does not fit into any diagnostic category but a review of his characteristic pattern of functioning suggests that narcissistic elements form a core aspect of his personality.
On the surface narcissist appear totally self-sufficient. But…, under their arrogant, self-confident façade, they are consumed with self-doubt, and feelings of inadequacy, which drive them in a never-ending quest for the attention and approval of an admiring audience.
Dr. Post concludes with the following observation that remains relevant in today’s Cuban regime:
While he will play to the international community, making cosmetic moves to show a loosening of control, he will not relinquish his iron grip on Cuba, as evidenced in the arrests and sentencing of critics in 2003. And, as he suggested in 1994, “he will not go gentle into that good night.”
Aon Corporation (a leading global provider of risk management services) in partnership with Oxford Analytica (an international consulting firm) produces a yearly Political Risk Map that “provides an indication of overall levels and types of Political Risk in more than 200 territories worldwide.”
Cuba has been identified with high political risk for 2010 by Aon/Oxford Analytica. The island nation received the same rating in 2009.
The rating is based on measures of Cuba’s risk of currency inconvertibility and transfer; strikes, riots and civil commotion; war; terrorism; sovereign non-payment; political interference; supply chain interruption; and legal and regulatory risk.
(Images: Aon Corporation, Political Risk Map 2010.)
Jerry Bremer, C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates (a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida) asks in his piece, “Cuba’s Agenda in Latin America Remains Clearly Nebulous,” via Mexidata.info, whether Cuba is a conventional military threat to anyone, which perhaps they are not, however. In the intelligence sphere, especially in Latin America, they apparently are so:
The history of Cuba’s Castro regime shows that they have trained thousands of communist guerrillas and terrorists, and sponsored violent acts of aggression and subversion in most democratic nations of the southwestern hemisphere. U.S. government studies within the intelligence community documented a total of 3,043 international terrorist incidents in the decade of 1968 to 1978. Within that study, “over 25 percent occurred in Latin America.”
[...]
Recent reports by the U.S. DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] show that Cuba has been expanding intelligence operations in the Middle East and South Asia.
[...]
…Cuba’s current intelligence and spy apparatus has been described and reported to be an active “contingency of very well-trained, organized and financed agents.”
[...]
Cuba has also maintained a well-organized and ruthless intelligence presence within Mexico, as have the Russians. Much of their activity involved in U.S. interests that include recruiting disloyal U.S. military, government, and private sector specialists.
Cuba operates by far the most hostile approach to freedom of expression anywhere in Latin America. There are currently 26 writers imprisoned in Cuba for expressing their political beliefs. Only China, Iran and Burma imprison more writers for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
56 people including writers, librarians, book collectors, trades unionists, political activists and human rights campaigners have been in prison since the notorious ‘Black Spring’ wave of arrests which took place in March 2003.
Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, has given a nod to the Roman Catholic Church’s desire to play a larger role in solving the communist-run island’s problems, possibly opening the way for the release of political prisoners, leading prelates said, in what experts and diplomats termed his most significant political move since replacing his brother Fidel in early 2008.
[...]
By the weekend the government had informed the church that the prisoners would be moved from far-off locations to jails in their home provinces, and any ill inmates to hospital, according to dissidents and church sources.
[...]
“After much ‘We-will-never-bow-to-pressure’ the Raúl government finally seeks some form of internal dialogue. As with recent economic measures, the steps taken so far can hardly be more than a beginning, and results need to be seen,” said Bert Hoffmann, a Cuba specialist at the German Institute of Global Area Studies in Hamburg.
“But they signal a modest change of climate: It may not be a tropical perestroika in the making, but at least the government shows acceptance that the economic and social crisis demands other responses from the state,” he said.
Reuters wire story on the Cuban government’s decision to move political prisoners closer to their hometowns and transfer sick prisoners to hospitals following talks between Catholic Church leaders and Army General Raul Castro.
Stratforissued a special report on Venezuela’s armed forces in early May, whereby the private global intelligence company opines:
Controlling Venezuela requires controlling oil and the armed forces, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has managed to do both for more than a decade. Challenges to this control have emerged, however, such as enormous debt at the state-owned oil company and dissatisfaction in the armed forces at the role of Cubans in the South American country’s military. Still, Chavez’s hold appears secure so long as the oil revenues keep flowing.
And on the Cubanization of the Venezuelan armed forces:
The salary increase for the military also comes amid rising public criticism of the politicization and so-called Cubanization of the Venezuelan military. Former Venezuelan Brig. Gen. Antonio Rivero claimed the “the presence and meddling of Cuban soldiers” in the armed forces prompted his April retirement. Rivero said Cubans were operating at some of the highest levels in the Venezuelan military, delivering intelligence, communications, weapons and other training for the troops. He also denounced the extent to which Chavez has undermined military professionalism, and complained of the government’s move to expand its civilian militia. In the same address in which he announced the salary increase for the military, Chavez addressed Rivero’s complaints, saying he was saddened by the general’s attempt to draw attention to himself. Chavez also defended his decision to embrace the Cuban military presence by criticizing previous Venezuelan administrations for allowing the U.S. military to staff the offices of the country’s Army Command Headquarters and manage Venezuelan state secrets.1
While the opposition is eager to exploit the public relations sensation of a general condemning Chavez’s military policy, retiring generals and the Cuban links into the Venezuelan military are not exactly startling developments in Venezuela. The deep integration of Cuban forces in the Venezuelan military has been an open secret in recent years. By having enlisted soldiers and trainers percolate throughout the armed services at virtually all levels, the Chavez government has been able to tap Cuba’s security and intelligence expertise to keep tabs on dissidents and quash any potential threats to the government. For its part, Cuba benefits from being able to influence the policies of a regional, oil-producing heavyweight in South America. As Chavez’s political and economic vulnerabilities have increased, so have the opportunities for Cuba to entrench itself in Venezuela.2
This symbiotic relationship saw its clearest manifestation with the July 2008 passage of the Organic Law of the National Armed Forces. The law redefined the Venezuelan Armed Forces from a politically nonaligned professional institution (as stated in the 1999 constitution) to a patriotic, popular and anti-imperialist body, as described in the legislation. Chavez, not wanting to be caught off guard again by his generals as he was during an April 2002 coup attempt, created the law to develop a military primarily tasked with protecting and defending the regime from internal threats. The Cuban government, wanting to ensure Venezuelan dependency on Cuban security, is believed to have had a role in one of the more controversial articles in the law. This provision allows for foreign nationals (i.e., Cubans) who have graduated from Venezuelan defense institutions to earn the rank of officer in the Venezuelan armed forces.3
Another clause in the law forces officers into retirement if they are not promoted after two years. Though such provisions are common in many militaries, Caracas has used it with unusual frequency as a tool to remove potential dissenters. Under this system, political allegiance can easily supersede military merit when it comes to awarding promotions or forcing resignations. Cuban advisers, who have been tasked with identifying localized threats from within the armed forces, are believed to have significant influence on these decisions.4
Chavez recently remarked in Havana that he felt like he was “one more Cuban.” But many Venezuelans do not like the Cubans’ methods or their growing presence in the country, and Cuban integration in the Venezuelan armed forces appears to have alienated several high-ranking members of the military. Chavez, however, has knowingly incurred this risk, and undermining powerful military leaders was likely one of his key goals. Problematic generals can be forced into retirement while the Cubans closely scrutinize the remaining military elite, who are given perks to keep them loyal to the government.5
While this comes at the cost of considerable expertise and professionalism, Chavez’s goal is to ensure that the upper ranks of the military lack the operational control to challenge the president. Mid-tier members of the military probably worry the Venezuelan president more, however. After all, Chavez was a lieutenant colonel with the charisma to rally a sizable portion of the military and lower classes around him in his 1992 coup attempt and victorious 1998 presidential campaign. As long as he is the one occupying the presidency, Chavez does not wish to see any lieutenant colonels following in his footsteps. Since Chavez lacks the same reach and oversight with the lower ranks of the military than he has with the generals, pay raises are a way to help mitigate potential threats emanating from below.6
Notes
1. Stratfor. “Special Report: Venezuela’s Control of the Armed Forces.” 3 May 2010.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
(Image: Venezuelan soldiers participate in parade with Russian arms. AFP/Getty Images.)
The report distinguishes between discotecas (which are discothèques), while discotembas are bars and public gatherings playing 1970s disco hits and attracting a graying crowd of dancers. Temba is Cuban slang for a middle-aged person who’s a bit past his or her prime.
Cuba’s communist authorities have shown more tolerance for American pop music once frowned upon.
Army General Raul Castro held a meeting with Jaime Cardinal Ortega y Alamino of Havana and Archbishop Dionisio Garcia (president of the Cuban bishops’ conference), to discuss issues including religious liberty and freedom of expression for political dissidents.
Wednesday’s talks touched on the sensitive issue of imprisoned political dissidents, Church sources said, without providing details.
The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Dominique Memberti, is due to visit the island next month amid increasing economic difficulties and international attention on human rights abuses in Cuba. Memberti is expected to press authorities to release political prisoners.
(Image: Clockwise from left — Army Gen. Raul Castro, an unidentified Cuban government official, Archbishop Dionisio Garcia and Jaime Cardinal Ortega. Agence France-Presse.)
Today’s ABC (one of Spain’s influential dailies) has an opinion piece on Raúl Castro’s silence during the 
The following list 1 provides the number of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer visits to Cuba, from 2001 through 2008:
The Cuban Council of State has relieved José Silvano Hernández Bernárdez of his post as the Minister of Light Industry.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has broken up an eleven member deep-cover 
Esteban Morales, the Cuban academic who wrote the article “![](http://cubapolidata.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ramirez-ignorant-celebrity-fashions.gif "\")
Foreign Affairs July/August 2010 issue is now online and one of its articles is on the 
Via 
Vatican
Alberto Pérez Giménez 
The 
The 
Spanish journalist 
A leftist guerrilla movement responsible for many kidnappings and attacks inside Mexico is secretly receiving funding from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The group, called the Ejercito Popular Revolucionario (EPR), is “a terrorist organization bent on destabilizing Mexico…Splinters of the group are also adding to the problem,” said a Mexican official who requested anonymity, 
Dr. Jerrold Post (
Parliamentarians begin analyzing economic situation
28 July 2010 at 1606 in Commentary, Debt, Economy, Government, Havana, Market, National Assembly, Nomenklatura, Ricardo Alarcon by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d
The Committee on Economic Affairs of the Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power (Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, ANPP) began today studying different issues related to the situation on the island, specifically, the precarious economic performance, which has increased demands for fundamental change by the populace.
Ministers and other leaders also notified members of the Committee on the implementation of the state budget in the first half of 2010, low labor productivity and import substitution. [El Financiero]
Tags: ANPP, Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, Committee on Economic Affairs, National Assembly of People's Power